Mine aren't nearly as dramatic. I alluded to this one incident in the "drives you up the wall" thread because it wasn't so much scary to me even though I was glad I decided to walk up to the school that day. I usually don't since my boys are in 5th and 3rd grade and really old enough to walk to and from school alone but now and then when the weather's nice I do walk up there with the babe just for the exercise or if I'm trying to get Piratebabe to sleep.

So I'd strapped him to me with the moby and headed off, and the school's only about 3 blocks from our house and there are 3 crossing guards along our route, the last one positioned in front of the school, as most of the walkers have to cross Potomac in order to get home. I'm walking along Potomac, headed towards the crossing guard when across the street, on the same side of the school, two guys start screaming and cussing at each other. I know one of them as my boys are friends with his son and once the guy found out I'm of Irish heritage he has felt the need to tell my boys that being Irish means not being afraid to fight with your own fists. Really plays into the "Fightin' Irish" stereotype there.

Anyway so he is bruisin' for a fight with a guy who I can hear but not really see well as he's mostly hidden by his truck that's parked on the school side of the street. Fighting Irish, as I'll call him from here out, is telling everyone how the other guy had knives and a crowbar and according to other folks who could see better, this much is true. Apparently he knows Knife Guy as they had a fight earlier in the week and FI pinned KG against a telephone pole and now the guy wanted to retaliate. So FI is cussing up a storm, yelling across the front yard of the school at KG as the Vice Principal has the school put on lockdown due to the guy having knives on him, and calls the cops.

No fight was even started, it was just a lot of cussing between FI and KG as VP was trying to calm FI down cause he was yelling and telling anyone who would listen what a big man he was and what a fine example of Irish manhood he was that he wasn't going to use anything but what God gave him in a fight.

Logged

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

Not far from here there was a HUGE fire at a local Dollarama, someone on Facebook posted about it, then minutes later the news was all over the place, my fiance and I took a drive over last night, and then this afternoon, it was so surreal, a dentist office, nail salon, beauty salon and Chinese Buffet suffered extensive smoke and water damage thanks to it.

Well, my old neighborhoods always seemed to be good for a story of something strange/scary/dramatic. Now that I think about it, I suspect that the ex may have been a major source of the magnet for that sort of thing.

The most interesting one was when we woke up one Thanksgiving morning to find that his vehicle was missing from the driveway. Well, we call the police and they showed up a few hours later (this is one of those days when there's really *light* police coverage) and so we have the cop in the house going through the report-making process. We had just gotten to the point of the license plate number when the officer's portable radio went off w/ a female officer reporting that she was on the scene of an illegally parked vehicle and she gave the plate number. Officer in our house asks her to repeat, then gets tells her to hold the tow as he was getting the report from the owners. So officer in our house gave ex (then husband) a ride to the car (about 1.5 miles from the house) and the two officers compared notes to finish their respective reports and link the report numbers, one showed ex how to operate the ignition with a screwdriver. The only damage to the vehicle was the ignition switch having been punched out. Next day we took it in to get fixed at a cost of $256. Since the coverage for that sort of thing was $250 we didn't report to insurance.

There was also the time when I went outside with the dog to let her do her nighttime business (so we were only in our yard) and as I came near the neighbors who were on the second floor porch I heard them comparing bullet scars. I was somewhat less surprised when they were the victims of a home invasion robbery. In the reports, we learned that he worked once a week driving as a courier from our city in upstate NY to somewhere in NJ (hmm!) while she worked at Mickie D. Odd that they had $1300 in cash to be stolen and the female half had gone to work (and had to be talked into calling the cops) only to give the most generic of descriptions (two Hispanic males between 5'6" and 6' both wearing hoodies and jeans--that only described about 90% of the city's Hispanic males). They also had an inordinate number of 2 minute visitors (as I reported to the police when they came to ask if I had seen anything--I hadn't, but my dog had been totally calm during the time of the incident, which suggested that the perpetrators were frequent visitors as she seemed to need to see people 10x before she didn't bark at them on sight, while she *had* gone bonkers when the police showed up, such that I had to step outside to be heard over her). Those people weren't neighbors much longer.

Of course, the real scary, dramatic stuff was from my own life. After I had filed for divorce and had the order of protection against the ex, he decided that stalking was a good idea. I called the police many, many times only to get "well, we need a pattern of behavior" so that just reports were made time after time. Some of the most dramatic incidents:

1) November 1 my cable line (also landline as I had phone through the cable company) was cut. Ex was in the neighborhood but I didn't realize it was cut as it could also have been that the tree dropped branches. I just called the cable co and they sent someone out to fix it. Cue report 1 to police. Next night, cable line is cut again, and I see ex driving away moments later (but there was "no proof" he was in vehicle). Cue report 2. Next morning, cable guy comes out to fix it again, tells me that there's someone watching him from about 100 feet away. Yep, the ex. Cue call #3. Between call and police arrival, ex left only to take up a new location 1000 feet away from house in opposite direction. Three police cars surrounded his, and a report was filed. He was warned then to stay away from the neighborhood.

2) Mid December, he called my mother to threaten suicide. He did this to his siblings regularly, and they would just try to get him to tell them where he was so they could take him to the hospital but never called police. My mom, however, is a mandated reporter so she called police in my city to report. I was at work at the time (I worked 3:30-midnight) and had v/m from her when I got off. There were two police cars parked in front of my house when I got home, and they stayed there until he was picked up at 2am elsewhere.

3) First Sunday in January 2011, I was driving to church when he appeared parked on the street opposite side of major north-south street. He followed all the way to church (but I ran a few lights and got far enough ahead that I let the kids out and let them run into the church before trying for a parking spot). He waited in a closed (that is, not open for business ever) parking lot across the street from the church, and then followed again when we left. I went to the grocery in suburb thinking that he wouldn't follow me out of the city. However, he did. Called the police but he had gone by the time they arrived at the parking lot. Explained that I believed he was waiting for me by the house. Officer offers to follow me home. I hadn't known he could do that, but eagerly took him up on the offer. Two blocks from the house, ex was parked in an intercept position. Officer stopped following me to have a discussion with the ex, whereupon ex threatened my life in conversation with the cop. Weirdly, this wasn't actionable because I wasn't there to be threatened and threats against a third party aren't illegal even if the threat against the third party is made to a law enforcement officer. Officer then came to give me a copy of report.

Finally he was arrested for stalking and violating the order of protection and the bail was set at $5000 (which was considered high for those charges). He remained incarcerated until he ultimately pled guilty and now is scheduled to be released in a month. I've informed police here, as I do have a full stay away order of protection against him (until 2019--that's the longest NYS allows an order of protection), and I'm not convinced he will stay away (I know the patterns of behavior, and for him to show up here totally fits).

Here, however, our drama comes from the weather. Like the time I was at work when a tornado touched down about a mile south, and we're all standing there at the window like a bunch of idiots watching this cloud start to slowly rotate just west of the building. One of those "I know I should run downstairs to the interior hallway" moments while being unable to tear my eyes away. Fortunately, it never formed into a full tornado.

... cause he was yelling and telling anyone who would listen what a big man he was and what a fine example of Irish manhood he was that he wasn't going to use anything but what God gave him in a fight.

Sounds like someone's watched The Quiet Man a few too many times. Was Barry Fitzgerald standing nearby taking bets on the outcome?

Logged

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain

My parents house has been struck by lightening 3 times. Twice while we were kids, all 3 times at night. The first time was pretty mild, my Dad put out the fire with the garden hose. The second time I can remember running outside with my Mom and running to the neighbors house while the roof burned. The third time was much more serious and I could've lost half my family. My younger sibling was overcome with smoke and my Dad had to carry them out of the house. We lost a beloved family pet in that last one. Anyone who says lightening doesn't strike twice just hasn't had it happen to them.

A well known sniper duo was captured at a rest stop just up the highway from my hometown, literally less than 5 minutes away. Our family dentist later told my Mom they had security footage of the car the snipers were driving. I can remember watching news of the capture and just feeling a chill go down my spine because they were this/close to my parents house.

In a town not too far from ours a father wiped out his entire family and himself (small children and I went to school with the Mom). In 2007 we had several back-to-back tragedies involving entire family murder-suicides

My best friend in high school had her car stolen right out of the garage. The guy got the keys by breaking into the house and just trying all the cars until he found the one it fit, then driving out through the (closed) garage door.

Logged

"Oh people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that" - Homer Simpson

I live in a nice sleepy suburb of Boston, next to a less-sleepy suburb. The Kohl's in other suburb is about a mile from my condo. That Kohl's was robbed at gunpoint two days after Christmas in 2010. A veteran police officer, months from retirement, was killed and was one of the bad guys. Since then, this town has had three other major armed robberies and another police officer shot.

At my last apartment:Abour 6:30 or 7, I wake up to sirens. Not unusual, since the complex with near an intersection between a major street and a highway. But they kept getting closer. Then I realized they were right outside. A firetruck pulls up outside my window.So I stuff my cat into her carrier, throw a jacket over my PJs and go outside. It turns out an apartment on the opposite side of the building had caught fire.As everyone stood there, waiting for the firemen to do their thing, news crews pulled up. Apparently, I didn't back away in time, because one of the reporters ended up interviewing me and I was on the news. My then-boss just happened to be watching the early news, that day, and saw me.I never did find out what caused the fire, but that half of the building was vacant for at least six months for repairs.

I've had racial graffiti spray-painted on my sidewalk. It was directed towards the across-the-street neighbors, with an arrow pointing to their house. I called the police and they pretty quickly caught the offender (a teenager wandering the neighborhood with a can of spray paint) and the village powerwashed my sidewalk for me.

One night, I was heading to bed when I saw flashing lights outside. There were a half-dozen squads in my driveway and the neighbors. They were planning some sort of rendezvous at another neighbors. There was a lot of discussion with the target neighbors but nothing ever seemed to come from it.

Another night, we heard distinct gunshots from outside. Sure enough, we called the police and they did a quick investigation and saw bullet casings in the across-the-street neighbors' yard. Don't know whatever came from that.

One day, I came home to see someone pulled over in front of my house and getting their car ripped apart looking for whatever.

Finally, I was involved as a passenger in a car accident. When the police brought me home, they said "we know this house". I was dumbfounded until they explained that they used to sit in front of my house and do surveillance on the drug dealer down the street.

I guess FI thinks that "Using what God gave you" doesn't include brains, does it?

LOL! Pretty much! I think he'd have to possess them in order to use them though.

And yikes, Honeybee,, that's scary! I didn't know that about the threat not being illegal if the one threatened is a 3rd party. Scary stuff!

Yeah, it seemed like some sort of weird schizophrenic thing where you have on one hand the officer saying "no crime was committed" and on the other hand that *same officer* saying that he thought that despite the fact that I was under a judge's order to not move from that county with the children (until the hearing which was scheduled for two months after this conversation) that I should take the kids and go anyway (even after I said, "But the judge ordered me to stay in the county" and officer replies "I really think you should move now anyway").

There were plenty of other scary incidents that I didn't mention. I was very close to a nervous breakdown by the time I met with the police detective who arrested my ex. When it was all over (ex had pled guilty and was sentenced), I wrote him a note to thank him for giving us our lives back and also wrote to the police chief about him.